Why Man Utd Wanted Rúben Amorim as Their Next Manager

Rúben Amorim has been announced as Manchester United‘s next manager. Here, we look why he became one of the most-coveted coaches in Europe.

When Manchester United spent part of the summer flirting – and not in a particularly inconspicuous manner – with Thomas Tuchel, it always felt as though Erik ten Hag would have to oversee a dramatic change in fortunes to keep his job in the long run.

He might have staved off the axe during pre-season, but the United hierarchy put the Dutchman out of his misery on Monday, roughly two and a half years on from luring him out of Ajax. There’s certainly an argument he was lucky to last as long as he did, but the deed is now done and the club have swiftly moved on.

While United could be accused of dithering over Ten Hag for the past five months or so, they approached the task of replacing him with far greater urgency and decisiveness. Who’s to say whether that’s actually at all meaningful or not, but United wasted no time in making their move for Sporting CP head coach Rúben Amorim.

The 39-year-old had been linked with a host of pretty sizeable clubs from the top leagues over the past few years. In 2024 alone he was reportedly a candidate to take over at Barcelona, Liverpool and Chelsea, while he also held talks with West Ham – discussions he later referred to as “a mistake” – before they appointed Julen Lopetegui, and he’d been strongly touted as Pep Guardiola’s successor at Manchester City after they announced a deal to sign Sporting’s director of football Hugo Viana next year.

But, after announcing the signing of an initial two-and-a-half-year deal on Friday, United have been the ones to prise Amorim from the lions’ den.

So, why him?

Amorim’s Background

Amorim took his first steps into management at a senior level as recently as December 2019. With Sporting Braga ditching Ricardo Sá Pinto, they subsequently promoted the then 34-year-old manager of their B team, and the change in fortune was significant.

After Amorim won his first game 7-1 against Belenenses, Braga quickly became a side capable of beating pretty much anyone – in fact, in the context of Portuguese football, they did. In a gruelling run of fixtures from mid-January to mid-February, Braga faced Porto and Sporting twice, and Benfica once – in Portugal, it doesn’t get any tougher. And yet, Braga won all five matches, including the Taça da Liga final against Porto, meaning Amorim won his first piece of silverware one month and two days into his senior managerial career.

Understandably, other teams were already sitting up and taking note, and in early March 2020, Sporting made their move. Paying a whopping €10 million release clause – apparently the third-biggest fee ever for a manager at that time – to appoint a former Benfica player with less than four months’ experience in senior management having already fired three managers that season opened the Sporting hierarchy up to all sorts of accusations and ridicule. But it proved a stroke of genius.

To really understand the change Amorim oversaw, you have to appreciate the situation Sporting found themselves in at the time of his hiring. Make no mistake, they took a huge gamble in paying so much money for such an inexperienced coach, but they’d underachieved for so long that it was understandable they felt the need to do something drastic.

When Amorim arrived at Estádio José Alvalade in March 2020, Sporting hadn’t won a Primeira Liga title in nearly 18 years. They’d only finished as high as second twice since 2009 and they went on to end the campaign outside the top three for just the fourth time this century.

But at the end of his first full season (2020-21) in charge, Sporting ended their long Primeira Liga title drought. They almost did it without losing a single game, eventually succumbing away to bitter rivals Benfica on the penultimate day of the season in a seven-goal thriller – regardless, the trophy was theirs.

They couldn’t repeat the feat the following campaign, finishing as runners-up to a Porto side who dropped points only five times all season, and then they fell out of the top three entirely in 2022-23 as questions began to build around Amorim’s future.

But 2023-24 saw Amorim guide Sporting to the title again, this time with a 10-point cushion at the top over Benfica, and they’ve started 2024-25 with nine wins from as many games in the league.

From the start of the 2015-16 season until Amorim was hired, Sporting’s 347 points in the Primeira Liga was far below the 396 and 381 accumulated by Benfica and Porto, respectively. Since Amorim’s appointment, Sporting’s 382 points in the league is seven more than Porto and 27 more than Benfica.

He hasn’t done it alone, of course. Director of football Viana has been widely praised for his work, but it’s also worth pointing out he took up his role more than two years earlier and hired the managers who didn’t work out before Amorim.

For most, though, it’s Amorim’s coaching, winning mentality and charismatic personality that have been central to Sporting’s rise back to the top of the Portuguese game. To say he leaves them in a better place than he found them would be a gross understatement.

Amorim’s Style of Play

A question most United fans will be asking about now is, how will Amorim want his United team to play?

An important distinction to make straight away is that it depends on his attitude upon his arrival. Is he going to rip everything up and start from scratch with a system that’s completely new to this group of players? Or is he going to let the players at his disposal dictate such decisions? Unfortunately, only he can answer those questions right now.

All we can do is look back on the kind of football and systems he’s implemented before – essentially, the football that’s made him among the most-coveted coaches in European football.

One of the most notable aspects of Amorim’s managerial career is the fact he’s almost exclusively used a back three. This is important because United have very rarely lined up in such a way, especially under Ten Hag. There were occasions under prior managers, though a back four has always been the norm at Old Trafford.

Amorim’s back three has featured mostly in a 3-4-3 formation that can appear a little more like 3-4-2-1. The width is generally provided by wing-backs, while the two wider players in attack tuck inside – there are then two central midfielders, one sitting deeper than the other.

Another iteration of the 3-4-3 used by Amorim deploys a midfield diamond, with the middle centre-back effectively a de-facto defensive midfielder and a support striker acting as the tip of the diamond. The two central midfielders operate slightly wider and then in attack there are wingers stretching the play and supporting the main striker.

Amorim’s tactics reflect his status as something of a pragmatist. His Sporting side have routinely set up in a low block during matches against opponents of a similar – or greater – standard. For instance, since the start of last season, Sporting’s open-play passing sequences have an average start distance from their own goal of 41.3 metres against Porto, Benfica and Braga in the Primeira Liga – that goes up to 45.9m against everyone else.

But this needn’t be interpreted as Amorim necessarily being negative. In fact, his Sporting side are pretty proactive – they’ve allowed opponents 10.9 passes on average before engaging with a defensive action (PPDA) in the Primeira Liga since the start of 2023-24, whereas United’s PPDA over the same period in the Premier League is 12.6. Further to that, Sporting have averaged 9.3 high turnovers per game in that time, an improvement on United’s 8.8.

When his team have the ball, Amorim clearly values retaining possession. Since the start of last season, they’ve recorded 173 build-up attacks – open-play sequences of at least 10 passes that end with a shot or touch in the opposition’s box – in the Primeira Liga, 30 more than any other team.

And yet, he wouldn’t be considered a possession obsessive who wants the ball for the sake of it. No, Amorim also appreciates the value in having a team that’s capable of being a threat in transition, with their 100 direct attacks – open play-sequences that start inside their own half and have at least 50% of movement towards the opposition’s goal before ending in a shot or a touch in the box – 18 more than any other Primeira Liga team since the start of 2023-24.

They took a particularly big leap forward in this regard last season, with Viktor Gyokeres’ arrival helping add another dimension.

Whichever way they attack, there is a significant focus in build-up through the middle. With an absolute width – the maximum distance a team gets from the centre of the pitch per sequence – of 24.9 metres since the start of last season, Sporting have been one of the narrower teams in the Primeira Liga.

The centre-backs play a major role here both in terms of distribution and progressing play by stepping forward. Among defenders to play at least 1,000 minutes in Portugal’s top flight since the start of 2023-24, Sporting pair Matheus Reis (12.6) and Gonçalo Inácio (13.9) rank highest for progressive carries per 90, while those two and teammate Ousmane Diomande all rank in the top six for total carry distance per 90. Inácio (99.3) has also averaged more touches than any other player in the division over the same period.

Despite a clear focus centrally, Amorim’s Sporting have had a great understanding of when to work the ball out wide, with no team creating more chances than them in either the right (219) or left (185) attacking thirds since the start of last season.

Sceptics, however, will point to the fact Ten Hag also had a very good track record with a club that was a big fish in a small pond prior to joining United; the Dutchman was a well-regarded tactician with a recognisable style of play, but he largely failed to establish an identity at Old Trafford and struggled to make the team consistently coherent.

Managing United and in the Premier League will be an alien task in comparison to coaching Sporting – but Amorim does have a history of developing youngsters, making players better and winning trophies. He’s charismatic, has his own way of doing things and a strong personality.

On the face of it, there’s lots of cause for optimism, but then you could’ve said the same when Ten Hag was appointed.

The point is, United’s underachievement has far greater roots than whoever’s in the dugout or picking the team, and it’ll take them years to reach a level institutionally where the club functions like a well-oiled machine.

In that sense, Amorim is walking into a minefield. Someone, somewhere will eventually do what no coach since Sir Alex Ferguson has been able to, however, and get United back to the top of English football.

To do that you have to earn the opportunity to take over in the first place. Amorim has taken the first step.

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